In taking off the driver's door all three bolts snapped on the top hinge. OK, I can drill them and EZ Out them (unless someone has a better suggestion) My question- if the cage nuts are stripped, how would one replace them? Does the inner assembly come out? As always, thanks for the help, Haasman
Advice : Is pretty much to ignore what I'm about to write and do whatever Evean or Russ says to do ! . If you lay a big flat washer over the broken off screw then weld a nut onto what's left , then heat the nut & broken screw until they're cherry red then quickly cool off with water until it's cool to the touch , you should then be able to spray it with Kroil , PB Blaster , Gibbs (NOT wd40 shyte) and tap it a few times with a ballpien hammer & tighten , loosen , tighten , loosen until the threads loosen up well enough to allow you to back the broken screws out . Or , you can ever so carefully drill out the centers of the broken screws , then soak in favorite penetrant (see above cautions !) and maybe use an easy out or a chisel to gently work them out (we did this in the desert last weekend on a snapped off handlebar bolt) . Remember : my advice is pretty much worthless , follow what the pros who'll soon chime in say .
More than likely they are too siezed for an EZ out to extract cold but try soaking with some Kroil for a week or so. You probably can get them out if you are willing to sacrifice 3 EZ outs. Heat to yellow hot, quickly drive in EZ out and immediatly back out. This EZ out will now be junk so repeat twice more. For drilling out you will need the drill to be exactly centered which you can do by making a guide. The hole in the door pillar looks to be about 1/2" in diameter so you guide tube could be 1/2" OD, a small (<> 1/4) hole drilled lengthwise through it on a lathe so it's exactly centered, and one end counter bored to just fit over any of the 3/8" bolt stub sticking out. This will guide the drill exactly through the center of the stub even if the end the drill starts in isn't square. You can then drill through the 1/4 hole with a 29/64 to make it right for a 3/8 tap. If you have a MIG a trick that works most of the time is to hold a nut over the broken stub, have the machine set pretty high, put the gas cup tight against the nut, DON'T wear a welding helmut so you can watch the nut turn red from the bottom up to the top. There will be no flash to hurt your eyes since the cup is against the nut and there will be no spill over to prevent a socket from fitting on the hot nut. The nut must be centered over the broken stub which looks like you will have to get the bottom ones centered in the pillar holes. It's been too long but once a year we would have our chapter of the Antique Auto Club meet at the shop for whatever they needed done that could be accomplished in one day. There were a few sandblasting jobs, a few metal shrinkings, a bit of technique show and tell, but the vast majority was dealing with twisted off bolts.
Hey, Haasman...these guys are giving some great advice. If it were me, I'd do the welded nut first, and I almost bet you that will work. I typically don't even worry about the quenching, as the heating of the broken end during welding tends to release the bond the rust has made. Once it cools off, you can rap it a couple of times with a hammer, then put a wrench on and work it back and forth until it agrees to come out. Doing it that way, your internal threads should still be ok. If for whatever reason you find they aren't, and (I can't address this, as I haven't looked at how that captured nut is accessed, and I'm a few hours away from my truck this weekend) you find you need to replace the nut but can't easily get to it, that is an ideal application for a rivet-nut. We use them a quite a bit in sheet metal that needs a thread boss for accepting a stud. You could either purchase an economical rivnut setting kit, or possibly borrow one from a neighborhood sheet metal shop to set the few you need. Make sure you set them according to the specs...if you don't pull them tight enough, they can break loose and spin, but a properly set one is good as gold.
DON'T, repeat DON'T drill to 29/64 to tap if it comes to that. Had a brain lapse on that one. It's 21/64 or even better a "Q" if you have some lettered drills. For cage nuts go buy a brand new tap so there is no binding while cutting threads. The original threads are 3/8-24.
Update .... so 5 of the 6 cage nuts are turning inside the door frame. I have almost drilled into all the broken bolts. Used a vise-grip to hold the ends of the broken bolts from turning. Anybody have a suggestion as to how to access or go about repairing the cage nuts that are turning inside the door frame? Haasman
Yes..... a great suggestion BTW, BUT ..... would I still need access to the back of the hinge mounts where the fricken cage nuts are ???? .... or (this just occurred to me) hammer the broken bolts and cage nuts into the door frame and then use the rivet nuts? That brings up the $64 question: can the rivet nuts be installed from the outside of the door frame or do they require access from inside the door frame? Haasman
Well, odds are if you drill the hole out to the oversize needed for the rivnut body, it may release the cage nut from the wall...I'm not sure how GM attached these to the sheet metal. Even if they stay attached, as long as you have the proper size hole for the rivnut drilled through the sheet metal and remaining cage nut, it should work. And no, that's the beauty...they are installed entirely from the outside...just like a pop rivet, but bigger and with a "depth" of thread that you couldn't get trying to tap the hole. I can get you the brand of setter we use, as well as an online source of the rivnuts, once I get back to the office Monday morning....
You right this may be the way .... ...another question- are they heavy duty enough to support the weight of a door (spanned across all the bolts and both hinges)? Haasman
I drill a few holes around the cage nut, use something to pull them tight against the sheetmetal, then MIG them to the sheetmetal, keeping most heat on the nut, to spotweld them back in. Then weld the nut over the broken bolt and back out. Now chase the threads with the proper thread tap and you should be good to go. Before removing any more bolts, soak them first with PB Blaster or Kroil first. Matter of fact, go ahead and spray ALL of the bolts on your truck to get the process started.
Sorry for the delay...just got back home from a weekend away... Oh, yea, they're plenty strong. We use them to thread 3/8 and 1/2" studs into aluminum square tubing with 1/8" thick walls on large work platforms. While what ol chebby is talking would work, these are really a cleaner and more secure way of addressing it, IMO. I'll see if I can find link on the net to let you read more about them...
OK this is sounding like a solution for sure ..... another question: Do the door jam bolts need to be able to move slightly for door adjustment or does that only take place on the door bolts? Thanks again for everyones help here. kind of felt overwhelmed this weekend ... Haasman
Here's a couple of pics of what I'm talking about... And one installed so you can see the back side... You can see more on them at http://www.rivetnuttool.com/#advantage Hope this helps!!!
I had no idea of these. they solve a lot of problems ... so my question again: Are the doors adjusted at all by the bolts here in the door jams? or only on the doors themselves? Haasman
As far as I can see, just in the mounts on the hinge to the door; the hinge is pretty well held in one location on the body. There is slight adjustability there due to the slightly oversized holes, but the "pitch" that the hinge holds the door at is a factor of the mounting adjustability in the door mounts themselves. The rest of you agree on this? tjs
Nutserts are similar, but watch some that have a very small outer flange...they can fail easier than the more robust ones. We've had some of the "nutserts" spin when torqued, and then you're kind of proverbially screwed...
The adjustment is in the slots in the hinge itself, In and out at the pillar, back and forth at the door. Much trial and error and creative and colorful language is involved.
